Program building in college football ain’t easy; in the SEC, it’s nearly impossible. Over the past decade, Mark Stoops slowly turned Kentucky from an SEC cellar-dweller into a contender, a program on the precipice of its seventh straight postseason. That transformation didn’t happen overnight, and without the patience of UK’s administration, it might not have happened at all. For that reason, Stoops has a lot of respect for what Clark Lea is trying to do at Vanderbilt.
Lea is in his second season at Vandy, his alma mater. Like Mark Stoops, he’s got a defensive background, serving as the defensive coordinator at Notre Dame before making the move to Nashville.